Making Maps

I’ve been thinking a lot about making maps lately, probably since I’m creating a map for a “new” secondary-world fantasy project. I really enjoy making maps, possibly to an unhealthy degree. I love everything from researching Earth geography to give myself ideas, to the process of penciling lines and features, to shading the final version in the colors that will later remind me what topography is where.

I have some idea of what a map is going to look like before I start drawing, but I also discover things about the setting as I’m going along. Every line I draw on paper comes with several whys: why is this border there, where was it before, who decided that this was the border. I think about the human geography while looking over the borders and topography. I think about where the borders might shift as the setting changes.

This is all super fun and exciting for me. But apparently it isn’t for everyone, because I know some people who don’t make maps. That these people exist blows my mind. I know that words are our art as writers, but how can you visualize more effectively than having a visual?

It’s a rhetorical question. I don’t want to know the answer. I love making maps so much that if an alternative exists, I don’t even want to know about it.